Treadwell, Sophie (1885–1970)

Like many women writers of her day, American playwright Sophie Treadwell began her career in journalism, working at the San Francisco Bulletin and the New York Herald Tribune, where she wrote fanciful vignettes before earning the right to cover sensational murder trials of female defendants and report from behind the front lines of war (including an interview with Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa). These assignments appear to have imprinted her dramatic style, which often tempered realistic situations with surreal, sometimes violent, imagery; a well-made play structure with an episodic logic; and the predictability of a character type with an unexpected act of rebellion. Treadwell, who wrote over forty plays (seven of which were produced on Broadway), is best known for Machinal (1928), an expressionist drama about a ‘young woman’ who is coercively compelled to enact the roles of secretary, daughter, wife, and mother over the short course of her doomed life. Only in an illicit love affair does she find true happiness, taking inspiration from her lover’s tales of renegade justice in Mexico to free herself from her oppressive marriage by killing her husband. But her freedom is short-lived, as the social order hails her back into its defining structures. After being forced to fit the pre-set narratives of a sensationalistic press, her life is condemned by the law before finally being taken from her by way of the electric chair.

A Literary Psychoanalysis of Sophie Treadwell's Machinal: Another Face of a Woman

This study aims at exploring the woman's chaotic psychology that leads to disastrous end. Treadwell's Machinal reflects the insufferable status of a woman in a time which is greatly affected by unemployment, low production, and poverty that create intensively sensitive psychology. In this play, Sophie Treadwell looks great not merely in her employment of expressionistic technique, but in allowing audience to pinpoint the troubled psyche of her protagonist. Treadwell , as an American playwright, has dealt with the family as a type of her own society. Then, through the psychoanalysis of Machinal, one can discern that it is not always the case where society is responsible for one's depression but a person might victimize himself via his unbalanced psychology

Feminism in Sophie Treadwell's Machinal

Sophie Treadwell's play Machinal, which was performed on September 7, 1929 , can be examined and interpreted within the framework of feminism. Generally speaking, feminism, as a theory, looks for the freedom and the independence of women in society. Besides, it calls for the elimination of differences between man and woman who are involved in social activities. In the play, Sophie Treadwell presented the dilemma of the Young Woman who lives in a society which is witnessing rapid scientific and industrial developments but these developments come at the expense of woman's freedom and her need to achieve her goals and to be treated as an equal partner in society rather than an inferior being in a society which is dominated by males. The mechanical society in which the Young Woman lives imposes its demands on her, therefore, she lives in a conflict between her personal freedom and the necessity to conform to the rules which are set by society. The young Woman submits to society which forces her first to work and to take care of her mother, then, to marry a rich man so that she and her mother will live a comfortable life. This marriage obliterates her personality and ambitions. After she marries her boss, the Young Woman feels that she is unable to adjust herself to her new marital life. First, because she does not have knowledge about marriage and sex , and second because her husband is a domineering and insensitive person who denies her the right to be a lone for sometime in order to be ready for her first night. This can be interpreted within a feminist context as a condemnation of males' domination over women and as a criticism of the marriage institution in which women have no rights to establish themselves as separate and independent beings. Sophie Treadwell examines and probes the character of the Young Woman depicting her confused understanding about her place in a society ruled by men and by materialistic values. This confusion leads the Young Woman to depression which is reflected in her rejection of her role as a dutiful wife and a mother. After giving birth to her baby, the Young Woman refuses to feed her baby because she is unable to accept her new role as a mother . Moreover, the Young Woman looks for passion which she finds in an adulterated relationship with a Young Man. After being emotionally involved in this relationship for a period of time, the Young Woman decides to kill her husband , an action which is interpreted by feminist critics as a way to escape from the confines of society and from a domineering husband whom she considered as her chief antagonist because he embodies her acquiescence to the ruling forces of social values and expectations. The play can be considered as a call for women's freedom and a change of the traditional and socially limited view about women. The success of the play can be attributed to the playwright's feminist attitudes which led her to write this play about a woman who looks for freedom and independence in a time of shifting attitudes towards the role of women in society.